5 OKR examples for Cost Management

What are Cost Management OKRs?

The Objective and Key Results (OKR) framework is a simple goal-setting methodology that was introduced at Intel by Andy Grove in the 70s. It became popular after John Doerr introduced it to Google in the 90s, and it's now used by teams of all sizes to set and track ambitious goals at scale.

Writing good OKRs can be hard, especially if it's your first time doing it. You'll need to center the focus of your plans around outcomes instead of projects.

We have curated a selection of OKR examples specifically for Cost Management to assist you. Feel free to explore the templates below for inspiration in setting your own goals.

If you want to learn more about the framework, you can read more about the OKR meaning online.

Best practices for managing your Cost Management OKRs

Generally speaking, your objectives should be ambitious yet achievable, and your key results should be measurable and time-bound (using the SMART framework can be helpful). It is also recommended to list strategic initiatives under your key results, as it'll help you avoid the common mistake of listing projects in your KRs.

Here are a couple of best practices extracted from our OKR implementation guide 👇

Tip #1: Limit the number of key results

The #1 role of OKRs is to help you and your team focus on what really matters. Business-as-usual activities will still be happening, but you do not need to track your entire roadmap in the OKRs.

We recommend having 3-4 objectives, and 3-4 key results per objective. A platform like Tability can run audits on your data to help you identify the plans that have too many goals.

Tability's audit dashboard will highlight opportunities to improve OKRs

Tip #2: Commit to the weekly check-ins

Don't fall into the set-and-forget trap. It is important to adopt a weekly check-in process to get the full value of your OKRs and make your strategy agile – otherwise this is nothing more than a reporting exercise.

Being able to see trends for your key results will also keep yourself honest.

Tability's check-ins will save you hours and increase transparency

Tip #3: No more than 2 yellow statuses in a row

Yes, this is another tip for goal-tracking instead of goal-setting (but you'll get plenty of OKR examples below). But, once you have your goals defined, it will be your ability to keep the right sense of urgency that will make the difference.

As a rule of thumb, it's best to avoid having more than 2 yellow/at risk statuses in a row.

Make a call on the 3rd update. You should be either back on track, or off track. This sounds harsh but it's the best way to signal risks early enough to fix things.

Building your own Cost Management OKRs with AI

While we have some examples below, it's likely that you'll have specific scenarios that aren't covered here. There are 2 options available to you.

• Use our free OKRs generator
• Use Tability, a complete platform to set and track OKRs and initiatives
• including a GPT-4 powered goal generator

Best way to track your Cost Management OKRs

The rules of OKRs are simple. Quarterly OKRs should be tracked weekly, and yearly OKRs should be tracked monthly. Reviewing progress periodically has several advantages:

• It brings the goals back to the top of the mind
• It will highlight poorly set OKRs
• It will surface execution risks
• It improves transparency and accountability

We recommend using a spreadsheet for your first OKRs cycle. You'll need to get familiar with the scoring and tracking first. Then, you can scale your OKRs process by using a proper OKR-tracking tool for it.

Tability's Strategy Map makes it easy to see all your org's OKRs

If you're not yet set on a tool, you can check out the 5 best OKR tracking templates guide to find the best way to monitor progress during the quarter.

Cost Management OKRs templates

We've covered most of the things that you need to know about setting good OKRs and tracking them effectively. It's now time to give you a series of templates that you can use for inspiration!

You will find in the next section many different Cost Management Objectives and Key Results. We've included strategic initiatives in our templates to give you a better idea of the different between the key results (how we measure progress), and the initiatives (what we do to achieve the results).

Hope you'll find this helpful!

More Cost Management OKR templates

We have more templates to help you draft your team goals and OKRs.

• OKRs to file patent for medical device and enhance prototype functionality
  patent-filingprototype-enhancementpatent-researcherproduct-developerpatent-analytics-teamproduct-development-team
• OKRs to successfully manage strategic partnership
  strategic-partnershippartnership-managementpartnership-managerstrategic-alliance-managerbusiness-development-teamstrategic-partnership-team
• OKRs to improve MTTR efficiency to enhance customer satisfaction
  automation-toolsfirst-call-resolutionsupport-team-memberincident-managercustomer-support-teamincident-management-team
• OKRs to establish monthly brown bag/office hours with IT
  office-hoursagenda-distributionsession-organizerit-team-membersit-teamorganizing-committee
• OKRs to enhance cashflow maintenance for successful resource provision
  cashflow-maintenanceresource-provisioncashflow-managerresource-procurement-officerfinancial-management-teamresource-management-team
• OKRs to implement effective talent acquisition strategies
  talent-acquisitionrecruitment-techniqueshr-managertalent-acquisition-specialisthr-teamrecruitment-team

OKRs resources

Here are a list of resources to help you adopt the Objectives and Key Results framework.

• To learn: Complete 2024 OKR cheat sheet
• Blog posts: ODT Blog
• Success metrics: KPIs examples